Priyayi

priyayi, also spelled Prijaji,
in traditional Javanesesociety, a class that comprised the elite in contrast to the masses, or “little people” (wong cilik). Until the 18th century the priyayi, under the royal families, were the rulers of the Javanese states. Like the knights in medieval Europe and the samurai of Japan, the priyayi were loyal to their lord and had a sense of honour and a readiness to die in battle. Their culture was marked by an elaborate code of etiquette. After the Dutch gained control of the Javanese kingdom of Mataram (18th century) and introduced indirect rule, the priyayi were used as administrators. Gradually they became professional civil servants. For this reason, the priyayi as a class were often regarded as Javanese civil servants. The priyayi were the first Indonesians to be exposed to Western (Dutch) education. Not surprisingly, the leaders of the Indonesian nationalist movements before World War II were predominantly from the priyayi. The Budi Utomo, the first proto-nationalist organization in Java, was also founded by the members of this class.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.